Here at Isles of Scilly Travel, we carry approximately 18 tonnes of mail and 658 tonnes of freight shipped on Gry Maritha and our Skybus airline will fly over 1,000 passengers over the Christmas period. We’ve been helping to bring Christmas to the Isles of Scilly for 100 years and marked our centenary this year. As well as our staff being very busy making sure the islanders and visitors have a wonderful Christmas, there’s a huge amount of community spirit and festivities taking place. We’ve caught up with a few of our staff on the islands to hear about their favourite parts of an island Christmas…
Amy Hart “One of my favourite activities at Christmas is going out with all your neighbours on Christmas Eve to wait for the Santa Sleigh to do its rounds. Each year a group of locals dress up as Santa and his Elves and decorate a local van as Santa’s sleigh and drive round the islands with Christmas music and fake snow to say hello to all the children and throw sweets out for everyone. It’s a nice way of bringing the Islands together on the night before Christmas.”
Carri Graham “The Island sparkles in a different kind of way at Christmas, we love being out with our four-legged friend walking the coast underneath the twinkling lights blinking on the high tide below…pure magic”
Jack Stone “I like playing football at the Garrison on boxing day it’s the Garrison Gunners v the Woolpack Wanders and it’s always a great atmosphere”
Emma squire “I love the Santa sleigh on Christmas eve, they use one of the Island Carriers vans and turn it in to a sleigh with lights and a snow machine and throw sweets off the back to all the kids, they are dressed up as Santa and his elves its magical kids and adults run out to see it drive past picking up sweets”
Herbie St Pier “I enjoy being able to go for a walk on the beach Christmas day and have a kick around with a football and my brother in the sand after dinner ”
Harry “The pubs open Christmas day and give all us locals a free drink as a thank you, it has a really Christmassy feeling in the pubs, all locals gathering by a warm cosy fire just chatting and catching up before they go home for their Christmas dinner ”
Borja “I love the pigs in blankets that the coop does! I also love the fact that everyone knows everyone so when a courier arrives and its obviously for a child’s Christmas present, we are able to contact the parents and arrange a delivery. So the child doesn’t have Christmas spoilt by seeing their present arrive; you don’t get that on the mainland.”
Raymond Brown “I love it when the community gets together and puts up the streetlights and the Christmas decorations in the park, then they have the street party and there is live music, mulled wine, chestnuts and local stalls, it’s very festive.”
Curly “I love it when the community rallies around and does the Christmas food boxes for the disadvantaged families. This year we collected 51 boxes which Helen Plowman organised, Toots Taxi collected, Island Carriers stored and delivered to the quay and the Steamship Group shipped them free of charge, it gives me a real sense of pride to be part of something like that.”
Would you’d like to experience an Isles of Scilly Christmas, waking up to the sound of the sea with windswept walks across the beach before warming up by the fire? There are some lovely accommodation options and we fly our Skybus airline from Land’s End Airport all year round, you can find holiday accommodation properties available here.
